a garage!

This Thanksgiving weekend, we had an extra celebration: a toast to the garage, which is mostly done! Now, we get to take a break 'til after we all go to Hawaii in January. :)















Everyone, including some good friends, worked hard this weekend, putting shingles on the roof, finishing the fascia, installing windows and doors, and moving the contents of the storage container into the new garage. (A real garage!)




















Karen and Ryan the Builder brought tasty lunch to give us energy. :)














Jay added shingles, moved windows, put down tar paper, and did just about everything!

















Emily and Dad wired the garage, so it's all 'lectrified, and everything...














Here's the garage, as night sets in on Julian.















My most fun of the weekend, though, was a just-before-closing visit to Home Depot on Friday; we left the boys in the wood shop and took ourselves to get the 1/2 ton of shingles we'd need to finish. Shan had to resort to climbing up shelving to get attention, and it took 3 people to push the cart when it was laden with all those shingles, but we made it. :)

thanksgivings' progress

House building is slow going when you're doing it yourself. So, I thought it might be fun to measure our progress in bigger intervals. How 'bout in "Thanksgivings"?




Here's Thanksgiving 2004--back before we had a building permit, when we were still just dreaming about design options. We went up the hill to dig access to the septic tank, as I recall, and had our Thanksgiving leftovers as a picnic. You can see, as we eat from the road, that the spot where the garage is now was totally empty...





These 2 pics are from Thanksgiving 2005--when we were anxious about being ready for concrete, and were moving dirt around. The garage pad was just potential back then. (Well, potential and a lot of rebar.)

Ryan looked smaller, too.

I'm looking forward to adding this year's vision!

on passing muster

Matt met with our building inspector today, and we got official sign-off on our garage walls. And have just a few things to fix up on the roof. Now, we can begin to see windows and doors in our future... Hooray!!!

Which leads us to our next invitation:
Anyone wanna come work on Thanksgiving weekend?

We'll be up in Julian on Friday and Saturday. :)

up on the rooftop, again

Matt, Mom, Dad and I went up again this weekend, and finished (!) the sheathing on the rooftop. So, we're (hopefully) ready for inspection when we get a chance. We also worked at putting more of the fascia up. Again, I realize that I'm not of value for my sheer strength.

I'm glad Dad was there to lift those boards with Matt!

On the way home, I was noticing all the very nice-looking houses that have MUCH smaller fascia boards. ;)

filling in the holes in the roof

The fall colors in Julian are getting even more beautiful. I can't wait 'til we can perch inside and gaze out at this view...

We did a bit more work this past weekend, but realized how necessary it is to have enough wood when you're trying to cover a whole roof...we ended up short, by 3 sheets of plywood. Except for a few gaps on the other side, we're nearly done with the sheathing, though, and we made some good progress on the fascia along the edge. Though it may not be readily apparent, it was quite an accomplishment for us to get those boards up. I discovered (yet again) that my gift to contribute to this project is NOT brute strength. Wood can be darn heavy, and roofs are, well, high in the air.

So thank God for ladders and the holding power of just one nail. I'm glad Emily's quick with that nail gun!

In other news, and for good chuckles when look back one day, I thought I'd include just a small reminder of how much less-than-ideal the trailer fridge is. When it works, it works WELL. This time, it made lots of things explode, and even left us a small frozen rock of Coca-cola. Good times.

workin' this weekend--Oct 14

We're going to be back at work on the garage this Saturday. We'd welcome any help! :)

See you there?

YOU can come build with us!

Hey!

This Saturday (the 16th) is the next day we're planning to go work on the house (er, garage...).

Wanna come?

matt's b-day building, this year

We worked this weekend, on Saturday and Monday; the roof is coming together, and all the rafters are up! Here's the view from Saturday:














We were grateful for some clouds that covered us for a while in the afternoon--they were stunning through the rafters. And we loved them up 'til they brough the lightning around. Then it didn't seem like a very good time to be on the roof, holding hammers...



















Emily trimmed boards for between the rafters. We gave them all names, so we could match them up with the spots they fit into later. Others mocked our names. We thought they were fun--much more fun to say: "Did you get Marilyn to fit?" than to say: "Is #12 in?". Fun wins, I say. (Besides, I'm writing the blog, so my version will become standard...)


















Here's evidence that I actually, at least for a moment, did some work, and didn't just take pictures. Aren't those rafters lovely?!?















Here's the view from below the garage, as the last rafters were going in.














On Monday, we started putting the plywood sheathing on top of the rafters. It took us a few tries, but we got better and getting the plywood to the rooftop safely...














We sang "Happy Birthday" to Matt at lunchtime, but the party wasn't, well, too outrageous. I just thought it was pretty swell that he was here with us this year!














Though none of us claims roof-climbing as our vocation, Shannon got pretty good at climbing.


















The first layer of plywood goes on...














As our workday drew to a close, Emily and I took a moment to wave down to those on land, enjoying our new, more-solid perch on the rooftop.














With the plywood almost done, and the front-side ladder in place, we put up the first of the fascia boards. Stunning, eh?

raisin' the roof

Today, we worked on the garage roof--with the help of our neighbors and a crane.















Emily helped make necessary measurements for vertical posts.




















Matt climbed up to put the beam in place.



















Dad supervised as the beams went up.















I sat in the shade. And in the sun. And in the window. It was my day off on the site...















Emily was in charge of hooking the beams to the crane.















Lunch was tasty (as always).



















Ryan helped trim the beam that wasn't quite right.















The funny shape of the garage roof came together, as the beams came up.
















We celebated Nona's upcoming birthday with some cake she baked. Happy 81st, Nona!

pics from the garage raising

I thought you might like to see some images from our work on Friday and Saturday--everyone worked really hard (braving some formidable heat...) and we got a lot done!

garage raised!

Thanks for your help! On Friday...


and on Saturday we worked hard, raised the fourth wall on the garage, and covered most of it in the plywood sheeting it needs!

like a barn-raising

We invite you to join us on Friday and Saturday, July 21 & 22, for a garage-raising!

Come any time--I think we'll work something like 9:30 to 6 both days. You can come either or both. You can even sleep there--there's plenty of space on that garage slab and there's a bathroom in the trailer.

Let me know you're coming (email me or post a comment) and I'll make sure you know how to get there, and that there's plenty of food and refreshment.

We would be very grateful for your help, and would love to have a house built partly with your labor & love!

a slab! really!

Last Thursday, July 6, Matt, Phil & Dad met with some fabulous concrete pumpers and finishers to *finally* pour the garage slab.














And, not meaning to insult the strength of the above-mentioned family members, we were very grateful for the presence of the finishers! Turns out, I've learned this year, concrete's really heavy, and screeding isn't really as much fun as the sound of its name might suggest...















But, doesn't the slab look glorious!?!














After their triumph, Dad quickly got to work cutting down tall weeds in the back.














Matt and Phil spent the rest of the weekend laying more blocks on the house foundation.















The walls continue to grow, as does the smoothness of their block-laying technique.















(And I even got in on a very little bit of the work, Sunday afternoon...)